This spring, where I live in upstate New York, can't make up its mind. It's spring. It's winter. It's spring. It's winter. Rinse and repeat, as we like to say.
Despite spring not being able to make up its mind, we've had the Great March. The crocuses, the squill, making way for the early jonquils, the start of the flowering trees, the big burst of Bradford pears (a terrible, invasive tree but oh so pretty), and now we are well into spring, if you believe the flowers. And the birds. Just someone tell the weather?
Anyway, here are some of the recent highlights. Most of the flower pictures were taken Sunday, because we had beautiful sunshine and balmy temperatures. Not like yesterday, when it rained.
Let's start by looking at this tulip and saying "open up, and say ahhhh".
I only have one of these lighter tulips. Let's tiptoe around it.
Our late daffodils will be packing it in soon. Enjoy us while you can, they seem to be saying.
I have had these small, late tulips for several years. It's just a small patch. Sorry for the blur; my back is giving me issues yet again and these are low down to the ground.
But it isn't just the flowers marking the March of Spring. Our migrating birds are returning. Now that we have a bird feeder (OK, three bird feeders) we are getting to see birds we've never noticed in our yard before.
And this even smaller dot on the left appears to be a female rose-breasted grosbeak. Like many other birds, the female is drab in comparison to the male.
Want to see more detail? Get out the magnifying glass! (the blue flowers on the ground are brunnera). The tree just leafing out on the right is our pawpaw.
This male and female rose-breasted grosbeak showed up at the feeder yesterday and ate. And ate. And ate, as the rain dripped down. These are birds that overwinter in Panama and northern South America and will cross the Gulf of Mexico in one, uninterrupted flight. No wonder they were hungry!! (I hope my info is accurate; I'm a beginner at this birding thing.)
I hope they come back tomorrow and didn't just use our feeder for a quick meal before moving on. When I saw the male, I thought "I have rarely seen such a beautiful bird in all my life".
Birding is going to get expensive if I have to get a camera that can zoom in on them!
Guess for now I'll stick to flowers.
And now, spring continues to march on, and I will end on that note.
...life marches on!
ReplyDeleteYour flowers are so pretty and I'm so glad you have beautiful little birds visiting, I hope they stop back by today too. :)
ReplyDeleteEveryone I know who is a real bird lover gets a camera eventually.
ReplyDeleteI tried some zooming in on birds with my phone,and you'll need an actual camera. This phone's camera is much better than the last, but zooming in just isn't its forte. It does nice close-ups, what I want, but not great for birding.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous! That's the thing about flowers. Generally THEY stay in one place! ;)
ReplyDeleteI can just imagine you getting a camera where you can zoom in on the birds and have one of them turn and say, "ya mind? I'm tryna eat here!"
ReplyDeleteThere's a wetlands nearby where many birds like to congregate. When walking there, there are many people with serious birding photography equipment. Those lenses are amazingly long. But I bet you could start out on the cheap as you get better at it.
ReplyDeleteCome to think of it, I've seen lenses for cameras on phones. That might be a good place to start. https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/best-add-on-lenses-for-iphone-and-android-phones